In a live conference discussion, two speakers examine the United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a set of 17 "wicked problems" slated for achievement by 2030. Speaker A argues that the breadth and ambition of the SDGs can undermine motivation and commitment when organizations view them as unattainable, recommending that strategists help clients scale back aspirations to realistic, localized targets. Speaker B supports this view by citing a technical study from an international partnership in East Africa, which concluded that no single country can realistically address all 17 goals and their hundreds of sub‑targets, underscoring the need for prioritization. The dialogue highlights the role of strategic foresight professionals in guiding companies and governments to focus on a manageable subset of goals that can generate the greatest ripple effects, rather than pursuing an all‑or‑nothing approach that may sap enthusiasm.
Chapters
So the UN is already saying the SDGs, the 17 SDGs, the 17 SDGs are— so, you know, based on the smallpox, how hard it was to do one wicked problem, solve one wicked problem, the SDGs are 17 wicked problems meant to be accomplished or achieved by 2030. So just, you know, in our role as strategic foresight people and professionals and strategists, you know, when we're advising companies and we come across something like this, we tell them, so you're saying you're not going to get there, there's no way, you don't believe in them anymore. And the client says, yeah, we don't, it's not possible. And then we say, well, suggestion, you cut the aspiration down to something that is believable. Otherwise, you will just have this thing hanging out there that nobody believes in. And it'll sap, it'll sap motivation and it'll sap commitment. And it'll actually work against you. What do you, what do you think of that suggestion that, you know, you revisit the plans and you bring them down to earth?
Absolutely. You know, I actually saw a very technical study that was being done by an international partner in East Africa. And what they were doing was saying, look, as a country, you're not going to be able to work on all of these 17. And, you know, it's 17 goals. And then, of course, as you know, there's like 100 things under them.
Hundreds of things, right?
And what they were trying to do was to help the country in a very kind of sort of statistical way determine which, which, which one could they choose to focus on that would have the most ripple effect across the others so that they could just at least choose one to work on. Now, I sometimes am cynical about some of these, you know, very quantitative models that people spend a lot I'm doing, because sometimes you do a lot just to, you know, discover what might have been common sense to begin with. But what was interesting was the commentary. I think the point that, as you're saying, you have to figure out, one, how you're going to localize this thing. And local could mean in your national context, it could mean in your village context. And then secondly, as you say, contextualize based on your capability and what seems believable for the space that you've got. And if as a country it's determining that one goal is what you can deal with, but you're going to try and choose that one well. I thought that's a pretty clever thing to do, you know, because the alternative, perhaps, as you said, is to throw your hands up and say you can't do any of it, it's all unreasonable.
